Archive for May, 2012

Edited to add: Am totally aware of how privileged I am that I am able to make this choice of part time work and the majority of time stay at home. There are so many others who do not have this choice.

Did I tell you, computer that I am working nights now? Just one night a week, and really not even that (my roster is far too complicated to explain and thank GOD for Gmail calendar otherwise husband would have no idea where I am at any given moment – which of course is his RIGHT as he is my husband and therefore owner. I have to text him every time I go to the toilet and I can only do a number twos with his express permission)

So how is it, you ask? Well if he let me go more often then it wouldn’t be so bad. The absolute worst is if I’m busting and he’s in a meeting so I can’t go toilet until he texts me back giving me the ok.

Oh! You mean work?

It’s actually a lot of fun. I am exhausted by the end of the shift and I need caffeine IV at exactly 2:20am and before I leave work but it’s nothing that a mother of four can’t handle. I do have a nap when I get home. Apparently, advice from seasoned shift workers - never sleep for more than 5 hours when you get home or your body clock will be stuffed. Hello? Which parent gets 5 hours of sleep in a row anyway?

The cases are varied and interesting and a lot of knowledge is coming back to me.

I still need to give my notice to sit for my Membership for Emergency Medicine and Critical Care but and it’s such a big but – I don’t seem to have any time to fit in the study with all the kids, the taking to and fro school and any after school activities. Weekends are usually taken up with my work (though not always) and I love to have time with the family. And nights? Nights are my only free time. I veg out then. My brain is frazzled and I have no brain capacity left to study. Once I give my intention to sit then I’m bound to that. Maybe part of me is using the time thing as an excuse. I don’t know. So the excuse, though it isn’t really an excuse so much as a reason is that I really can’t find any time to fit in study.

Blue milk (Is this one name or two? which one is her surname and which one is her first name?? I never know where to put the capital letter. Too confusing! In any case, please go and visit her, you will not be sorry) wrote a post about choices:

which is not to tell you which choice to make about motherhood – staying at home or returning to work – and it is not to say that either choice is a mistake but to talk about the feeling I have now of making peace with my path, which was returning to work part-time after my baby was born. It is also a post for those wondering what choice they might make after having their baby, those wondering how mothers returning to work feel about that decision down the track. Beware of choices because it is possible to angst over them a lot, I have found.

It’s a great read and I loved all the comments.

I don’t know if I am so much making peace with my path or the opposite. In any case, I have been thinking a lot about my career choices lately. I took about 15-18 months off work after having my first child and then went to part-time work. And I don’t even know if Saturdays qualify as “part-time” because they’re really not that many hours. That long a break is huge in the veterinary field. Surgical skills are lost, new drugs on the market, changing protocols for disease processes. Then the next child born, another 6-8 months off. Then the next, another 10 months maybe and then the next. She’s 16 months old now.

I don’t regret leaving work to take care of my children. It’s worked very well for our family. My husband has been supportive in whatever choice I made (we are still working on the toilet thing) I love being home. I am a crap housewife but I am enjoying nurturing, half arsed cleaning and cooking. I enjoy being with the children.

But.

I am at the point where I don’t want to sacrifice my career anymore.

But.

I don’t want to put my youngest in daycare.

But.

I cannot study with her at home. 16 months is that demanding age, where they cannot possibly do for themselves and cannot possibly have you do anything for yourself.

But.

I am at this point where I want to study. For me.

And yet.

Am torn because I gave my other children time with me until they went to school. I don’t want to deprive my 16 month old of that. And I don’t want to deprive myself of that, either.